Alone
by foureverbookworm
Summary: Just a little oneshot about how I think Peeta felt after the 74th Hunger Games. Answers some questions such as, What is Peeta and Haymitch's relationship like? and Why does Peeta live in The Victor' s Village alone? Lot's and lot's of angst.


**Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games**

"Katniss?" I ask dropping her hand. "It was all for the games, how you acted." A crushing feeling has taken over my body as I realize something, she never loved me. It was all a strategy to win. So that she could go home. Home to Gale.

"Not all of it." She grips the flowers I gave her tightly.

"Then how much?" I ask but I really don't want to know. "No, forget that. I guess the real question is what's going to be left when we get home?" Another question that I am not sure I want to know the answer to.

"I don't know. The closer we get to District Twelve, the more confused I get."

I wait for more of an explanation, but she does not oblige. "Well," I say trying and failing to keep the pain out of my voice. "Let me know when you work it out."

I turn around and walk back to the train with tears streaming down my face. I slowly walk into my room and collapse on the bed as I begin to sob.

All my life the only person I have known to really love me is my brother, Charlie. My mother hated me, my father ignored me, and my other brother followed suit. Ever since I was five I had felt an attachment to Katniss Everdeen. Admittedly, I had stretched the truth in the arena. I had not loved her since I was five. I hadn't started loving her until I was eleven and we were put in the same class meaning I actually got to know her. Still, ever since I was five I had wanted her to notice me, and since I was eleven to love me.

I had taken a beating for her. I had told off my friends who made fun of her. I had tried my best to get her to notice me, but I always got too scared to talk to her. Until these cursed games. I had told the crowd I loved her. She had made me bleed. I should have known that she was faking loving me in the arena. No one pushes someone they love into an urn.

My heart had just filled with so much hope and happiness thinking that though those moments might have been my last, I would spend them with the girl I love and she loved me. I wasn't as alone as I thought I would be. Stupid me. A girl like her would never go for a boy like me. She probably thought I was a pampered pansy because I grew up in the town.

She was wrong. My whole life I had been beaten and put down by my mother. I would beg my father to help me, but he would turn a blind eye not wanting to lose his wife. My eldest brother, Max, enjoyed being his mother's favorite too much to stand up for me and Charlie, though he loved me, was only two years older. What was he to do?

So, my mother walked all over me. I was beaten and called worthless so much I actually began to believe I deserved it. Perhaps I just didn't deserve to be loved which was why Katniss Everdeen took my heart and stomped all over it.

I feel like I am being unfair, she was just trying to stay alive. But why couldn't she have told me the strategy? I would have gone with it. Why did she have to trick me? Did she not know that I really did love her?

More tears made their way down my face. Was I really blaming Katniss for my misery? I was sure now that I just wasn't supposed to be loved. Still, it didn't mean I would ever stop loving Katniss.

"What the hell are you doing in there boy?" a voice at my door asks after a few knocks.

"Go away Haymitch." I say into my pillow.

"Get out of your damn room."

I am reminded forcibly of my mother at his tone and word choice. I calm myself and stop myself from scrambling to the door and running outside. Haymitch is not my mother. He is not going to beat me. "No." I mumble.

There is a dramatic sigh at the other end and Haymitch throws my door open.

"Boy. What the hell are you doing?" he repeats as he slams the door and takes a swig of a spirit.

"I am lying on my bed." I snap looking up at him. "Now get the hell out."

"Watch your tone boy."

"You're not my mother." I say partly to him and partly to remind myself. He does sound eerily like her.

He rolls his eyes. "Wonderful observation. Now what are you really doing in here."

"What does it look like?" I snap. I really don't want to talk to him. He favors Katniss anyway.

"It looks like you're sobbing like a baby."

I growl at him and burry my face back in my pillow.

"She told you didn't she?" he asks after a moment of silence.

"That it was a game? That she doesn't really love me? That everything she did in the arena was a strategy? Yeah. Yeah she did."

He sighs. "Boy, did you really fall for her act? She was pretty bad at it."

"I was half dead and head over heels in love. What did you expect? And will you quit calling me boy? I have a name you know."

He ignores me. "I'm surprised the Capitol people did. I kept telling her to ramp up the act…"

"You what?" I ask lifting my head from the pillow again.

"I kept telling her to make it more convincing. Here you were being all lovey dovey and she was just kissing you randomly."

"You-you were sending her messages?"

"With the food." He answers.

It takes a moment, but soon I realize what he is saying. He helped her. He knew what she was doing. He came up with it and he knew what would happen to me. Now, I didn't care about dying in those games. I had planned on dying for Katniss anyway. No, Haymitch had known that I _loved_ Katniss so much that I was willing to die for her, he knew that and he came up with that cruel plan.

"How could you!?" I scream. "I asked you to help me let her live! Not to help her tear my heart to shreds! Did you think it was nice to watch your favorite tribute win and leave the other one to be miserable? You knew I really love her but you still helped her do this."

"What did you expect me to do?" He yells.

"YOU COULD HAVE ATLEAST TOLD ME WHAT THE HELL YOU WERE DOING!" I yell "YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME SO THAT I DIDN'T GET FOOLED!" With sudden anger I lash out at him.

He grabs my wrist and slaps me hard across the face. I yelp and struggle to get free of his painful iron grip. "Let me go!"

"No." he seethes. "Listen, you asked me to help Katniss, I helped Katniss. How I did it is nothing personal. You were already doing what was necessary. Telling you might have ruined it."

"You seriously think I wouldn't have said all those things if I knew she didn't love me?" I ask. "I would do anything for her!"

"No." he answers still clutching my wrist. "You were just more convincing when you didn't know."

I don't say anything. I don't know why he did what he did, but what was done was done. He had left me to be broken and that was that. I suddenly wish I had eaten those berries.

"Could you please let go of me?" I ask.

He tightens his grip and I yelp again. "How do I know you won't pathetically try to punch me again?"

"You don't." I spit truthfully but foolishly. It's not like me to be so bitter and angry. I'm usually mellow but now I feel like everybody has turned against me at once.

"Exactly." He smirks. "So I'm not going to let go."

I scoffed. "So you just want to sit here with me for the rest of the train ride? Fabulous."

"I'm not going to sit with you for the rest of the train ride because you're getting out of your damn room." He snarls.

"Why?" I ask. Suddenly, all feelings of anger have left me and are replaced by a crushing sadness. "Why should I come out of my room?"

He does not have an answer. I feel oddly triumphant as he walks out of the room slamming the door behind him. "Stupid boy." He mutters.

I lay back down on my bed rubbing my now bruised wrist. Maybe I am a stupid boy.

* * *

I don't come out of my room until we begin to pull into District 12. I nod to Katniss trying to keep my face as expressionless as I can. She scowls and I can tell she thinks I'm being unfair. She just doesn't know what it feels like to get everything you want and then have it taken away from you. She never will.

I stand next to her and we silently watch as we pull into our grimy little station. As miserable as I am, being home again feels good. Except, it doesn't look like home. The platform is filled with cameras and it seems the whole population of our district has come to welcome us.

I extend my hand towards Katniss and she looks at me unsure. "One more time?" I say in a hollow voice. "For the audience?"

She takes my hand and grips it tightly as we walk out onto the platform and are immediately swarmed by people. I smile and answer their questions and we both pretend that we are deeply in love.

After all the reporters leave, Katniss runs up to Gale and her family and wraps them all in a hug. I scan the crowd for my family and find only my brother.

"Hello." I say to him hollowly as he pulls me into a hug.

"Hey Peet." He's smiling like crazy. "You did it! You won! I'm so glad to have you back."

I smile a little. "I'm glad to be back."

"What's wrong little bro?" he asks as we walk to the bakery. "Aren't you happy? You made it back! Katniss loves you!"

"I am glad I made it back." I say truthfully.

"And Katniss?" he asks. "Aren't you glad to have her?"

Tears well in my eyes but I blink them away. "I don't have her." I say hollowly. "It was a strategy she and Haymitch worked out. Nobody wanted to watch the 'star crossed lovers' die."

"Oh." He says stopping and hugging me again. "Peeta, I'm so sorry. That was cruel of them."

"Don't be sorry." I say with a shrug. "It kept us alive. Besides, you didn't do anything."

We walked the rest of the way in silence.

"Guess who's back!" Charlie exclaims as we enter the bakery.

"Peeta!" my father exclaims wrapping me in a hug.

"Hey." I smile a little.

"Good to have you back Peet." Max says patting my back.

My mother is a little less pleased.

"Good, good, so you survived all thanks to the Seam girl." She snaps.

I sigh. "Nice to see you too mother."

She ignores me. "Where is she anyway? I wish I could trade you for her. A good strong woman is what this family needs."

"She is with her family and Gale." I answer curtly. Why does everyone want to talk about Katniss?

My mother scoffed. "I should have known she wouldn't actually love a boy like you. Smart plan of hers though."

"Mother!" Charlie exclaims.

I sigh. I'm just so tired of this. "No. It was a smart plan. Would you guys like to come see the new house? Haymitch already gave me the key."

"New house?" my mother snaps. "It's _your _new house."

I look at her puzzled. "You-you all aren't coming with me?"

"Of course not." Mother snaps. "This is a fine chance to get rid of you in my opinion."

I stare at her gaping. "You-You can't be serious!"

She glares at me. "Of course I'm serious. Now, get your things and get out."

* * *

As I sit in my new house, I feel hopeless. In a few weeks, I have lost everything I hold dear except my life. I lost my innocence, (meaning I killed someone), I lost my love, I lost my leg, I lost my home, and even my family is now gone.

Yes, I won. Yes, I am a Victor and I know live in a lavish and luxurious house. Still, I feel empty. A few weeks ago, if someone had offered me the chance to live in Victor's Village and leave my abusive family I would have jumped for it. But now, coming back from almost losing my life, I yearn for the days that I worked in the bakery and played with Charlie in the evening. I yearn for the solace and comfort people find in their families. And most of all, I yearn for the comfort and happiness that a family can give. I am sure that Katniss is currently being overwhelmed with people joyously rejoicing her return. But I, I was kicked out of the only home I've ever known and I have never felt more alone.

* * *

**Author's Note: Just a little angsty oneshot... hope you like. Please review.**


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